ICE Eliminates Fugitive Arrest Quotas

An increase in federal immigration raids that began in 2006 sowed fear in many Bay Area immigrant communities — from Novato to Gilroy — while drawing support from those who feel the government should be tougher in enforcing immigration laws.

Morton, who took over at ICE in May, told reporters in Los Angeles yesterday that he was not pulling back from enforcing the law against immigration fugitives who’ve had their day in court but have absconded from deportation orders. Instead, he emphasized that agents should be focused on tracking down immigration violators, particularly criminals, not meeting numerical quotas.

ICE dramatically increased its fugitive operations between 2006 and 2008 with a program known as Operation Return to Sender in which armed agents showed up at homes, usually before dawn, with warrants for individual absconders. In the process, ICE agents swept up tens of thousands of immigrants they suspected of being in the country illegally.

ICE increased spending on fugitive operations from $9 million in 2003 to $218 million in 2008 and the number of teams grew from eight to 100, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute published earlier this year.

In 2006, the agency instituted a 1,000 arrest per year quota for each team, the institute found. At that point the number of arrests grew but so did the proportion of people arrested who were neither convicted criminals nor immigration fugitives but “collateral arrests” of people suspected of being illegal immigrants who were encountered by agents on the street or in homes.

Of the 97,000 people arrested between 2003 and 2008, almost three-quarters of them had no criminal record, the report found.

The elimination of the hard quotas and the renewed focus on tracking down convicted criminals are part of a series of changes that Morton has instituted at ICE, including an overhaul of immigration detention and an increase in scrutiny of employers who hire undocumented workers.